BiologiQ's Invention

Starch and starch-blended plastics have been available for years and are commonly known as Thermoplastic Starch (TPS) and TPS blends. However, these TPS plastic products have been expensive to produce and have not achieved the level of quality that is required to make high-quality thin films for plastic bags.

BiologiQ invented a new kind of TPS that it calls Eco Starch Resin® (ESR).

Using its proprietary process, BiologiQ’s makes a low moisture content plasticized starch resin pellet called ESR. We make ESR in pellet form so plastic product manufacturers can use them like other traditional plastic resin pellets using their standard production equipment. BiologiQ’s ESR pellets are designed to be blended with conventional petroleum-resin pellets to increase the sustainability of all plastic products.

Most companies that make starch blends today start by blending conventional fossil-fuel plastic resin pellets with starch powder using twin screw compounding machines. The resulting blended pellets are usually not very well mixed and cannot be used to make the same high-quality and high-performance thin films as can be made by using BiologiQ’s ESR pellets. ESR can be blended with every type of conventional plastic and also with other bioplastic resins.

At BiologiQ, we have invented a process that allows us to make blends of ESR with traditional low-density polyethylene in such a unique way that the resulting thin films are significantly stronger than the PE-only film structures. This significant breakthrough makes it possible to reduce the thickness of the thin films. Adding BiologiQ’s ESR to LLDPE or LDPE increases the bubble stability and makes it possible to blow films as thin as .1 mil (2.5 microns)! Bags made with 25% ESR and 75% PE that are downgauged by 30% result in 50% less fossil fuel being used to make the bags. This, in turn, reduces the amount of conventional non-degradable PE that ends up in landfills and the ocean.

Thinner bags results in lower costs and the production of ESR generates 80% less CO2 than traditional resins made from fossil-fuel.